Near the top of the Players page, a line says whether the panel’s tools are running in the game. Most of the time the fix is one restart. The tools are the part of the panel that lives inside the game. They read health, items and positions, and they carry out Give, Heal, events and the like.
Only TShock and tModLoader can run the tools. Vanilla cannot. The tools are put in place when the server starts, so a change shows up only after a start.
Find your line
Read the line on the Players page and match it below.
- The tools line
The line (1) sits just under the Join box.
- “Vanilla runs nothing of the panel’s, so kicks, bans, the time and messages work but health, items and the live map need TShock or tModLoader.” This server runs Vanilla. Kick, Ban, the time buttons and messages still work, because they are console commands. To get the rest, follow change it on the World page and pick TShock or tModLoader. See change the server software.
- “The panel’s tools are in place and load at the server’s next start.” The tools are installed, but the game that is running now started without them. Restart the server once.
- “The panel’s tools report, and act once the server has restarted with their key.” The tools are running, but this start did not give them the key that signs the panel’s orders. They can report, but they cannot act. Restart the server once. The key is made by the panel and is never shown.
- “Older panel tools are running; the new ones load at the next start.” The server is running an earlier copy of the tools. It keeps working. Restart the server when nobody minds, and the new copy loads.
- “Nobody is on, so the world is paused: the panel’s tools act once someone joins.” Nothing is wrong. An empty Terraria server does not run its world, so the tools wait. See why actions wait for a player.
- “The panel’s tools are running in the game.” All good.
Restart the server
- Restart drops everyone who is on. Choose Message everyone on the Players page to warn them first.
- Choose Restart at the top of the server page.
- Wait until the console says “Type ‘help’ for a list of commands”.
- Open Players again. The line changes within a few seconds. The page refreshes every 5 seconds while the server runs.
The game saves when it stops.
If the line does not change
- It still says “load at the server’s next start”. The server was not restarted, only reloaded in the browser. Stop it and start it again.
- The server runs tModLoader and the line is the same. Open the Crashes page. A start that stopped early never reaches the tools. A world that Terraria 1.4.5 saved does not open on tModLoader, which runs Terraria 1.4.4. See tModLoader will not open a 1.4.5 world.
- Actions are refused with “the panel’s tools are not running yet”. The tools load when the server starts. Restart once, as above.
More about the game: Terraria servers.
Sources: terraria.wiki.gg: Server